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Arlene (Noble) Saline
Alpine, AZ
Interview: November 9, 2010
We are interviewing Arlene (Noble) Saline, who was born on March 7, 1935, in Mesa, AZ.
Tell us about your family and your connection with this Alpine area:
My Grandfather and Grandmother, Edward Alva Noble and Ann Jane Peel, homesteaded here in 1882. My parents were Charles Leslie Noble and Ann Rozella Brinkerhoff. They were farmers and ranchers. Dad was born here at our ranch and lived here all of his life. He was a soldier in World War I and was stationed in France.
We owned 120 acres that Grandfather homesteaded, which was located in the west end of the valley. After my mother and dad were married, they homesteaded another 120 acres down by Luna Lake. My dad was a cattleman all the days of his life. He had 150 head of cows and several good bulls. My dad was constantly trying to have the best cattle possible, so he would buy the best bulls available.
There were 6 children. I had 5 older brothers; Merwin, Edward, David, Robert, and Paul. I was the baby of the family. A mid-wife who lived in Alpine, helped my mother deliver all of the boys. When I came along, Mother went down to Mesa to stay with her sister, Lydia, who was also a mid-wife. She delivered me at her house on March 7, 1935.
There was only one phone in the whole town of Alpine in those days and it was at the general store. Soon everyone in town knew that Leslie and Zella had finally gotten a baby girl. I was very much loved and just a little spoiled.
Schooling:
For the first 4 years of my school life, my mother taught school in Nutrioso and taught me. We would rent a house in Nutrioso during the school year. Dad would stay at the ranch in Alpine with the older boys and the rest of us would live in Nutrioso during the week. On the weekends we would stay at the ranch and catch the school bus on Monday morning.
When I was in the 5th grade my mother started teaching school in Alpine, so I finished my elementary education in Alpine. My mother taught school for many years. Her first teaching experience was on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. She taught the Indian children along with the military children in the same classroom.
I went to Round Valley High School in Eagar. I rode the bus every day. During my Junior and Senior year, my dad would let me take the car quite often because I was just a little bit spoiled.
I received a scholarship to Arizona State University, which was a big adjustment, coming from a high school of 100 to attend a university which had more than 20,000 students. I completed 2 years and then married Kenneth Rex Saline. Kenneth was drafted into the Army and we spent our first 9 months of marriage in Germany. I later finished my education, a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California.
Friends:
My close friends were Edna Whitmer, Yolanda Jepson, Marlene Hamblin and Myrtle Dillam. We had many good times camping out and building bon fires every summer.
Ranch chores:
I was busy all the time, helping mother cook for our large family, and the many guests that we had in the summertime. We always had a big garden and my job was to pull the weeds. We always had milk cows and I would help separate the milk and churn the butter. My mother said that I should never learn to milk the cows, because my brothers would have me milking all the time. Back in those days, we did not have a hay bailer. We would stack the loose hay in the wagon, and my job was to get up on top and stomp the hay down so we could load more hay on the wagon. I remember one time when I was about 6 years old, I was wearing my dad’s big boots, and my mother sent me out for wood. The old sow came after me with her mouth wide open. I kicked those boots off and climbed up on the fence and called for help. My father rescued me and put the sow back in her pen. He took this incident very seriously because the year before, that same sow had bitten off his finger.
Trips to Springerville:
My dad and mother went to Springerville every Saturday to do their shopping. We always went out to eat and to the movie and we always went to the basketball games and football games. My parents continued to go to the games even after we were all grown.
Gardening:
We had a big garden; lots of potatoes, corn and carrots, everything you could raise in Alpine, except tomatoes. We never could raise tomatoes. I remember Dad raised wheat down on the Luna Lake property. He had mules to begin with, and then we got a 1938 John Deere tractor. I drove that tractor a lot!
Vehicles:
Dad always drove Ford trucks and cars and he would get a new one every two or three years. Mother taught me to drive when I was eleven or twelve, but I didn’t get a driver’s license until I was eighteen. I was driving everywhere long before it was legal. During the summer, we had dances regularly at the church. Sunday morning, my dad would go to church early and clean up the beer cans and bottles, so people could go to church without stumbling over them. One Sunday afternoon, I collected all of my friends in the truck, which was full of beer cans and we went to the dump on the far side of Nutrioso to throw them away. Along the way I stopped and picked up more friends who were in Nutrioso. There was a girl on each front fender and four more girls in the cab of the truck. When I was driving back to Nutrioso, I couldn’t see because of the girls on the fenders. I got a little too close to the edge of the road and off I went! The truck rolled over 1 ½ times and luckily no one was hurt. I was going so slow that the girls on the fenders just jumped off! Someone came by in a car to see if we were all right and then drove into Alpine to tell my dad. He rushed over to the site of the wreck and saw the truck on its side. He sent for Arlo Jepson, who owned a garage in Alpine. He came and turned the truck upright on its wheels. Dad drove that truck for three years with bent hood and a driver’s side door which wouldn’t open. He never said a single word to me about that wreck, but I had to live with the proof for three years. I was teased on numerous occasions about wrecking my dad’s truck!
Weather:
We didn’t think the weather was nasty then. We just thought it was lots of fun. When there was snow on the ground, we would take our sleds to school and at recess we would race to our sleds to see who could get down the hill first. Arlo Jepson made Yolanda a big sled that three or four of us could get on and we would just fly down that hill! We had to be very careful not to go across the highway, because there might be a car coming. So we would make a turn and go down the side of the highway.
After high school:
I met my husband at ASU and he decided to finish his education in Logan, Utah. We lived in Utah for many years, where he taught Vocational Agriculture. Both of our daughters were born at the Logan hospital and attended their early years of school in north Ogden. We then moved to Calexico, California and lived there for five years. Eventually we moved back to Thatcher, Arizona where I taught school, and our daughters graduated from Thatcher High School.
Return to Alpine
We always said that we would move back to the ranch as soon as our children finished high school because we didn’t want them to have that long bus ride to Springerville every day. In the summer before our youngest daughter, Sara’s Senior year at Thatcher High School, Kenneth was offered a job as head teacher in Alpine. He moved to Alpine without us because I didn’t want Sara to miss her Senior year with her friends. After she graduated, I moved up here and Kenneth and I have lived here ever since. We taught school for many years in St. Johns, AZ, driving back and forth every day. Kenneth retired from teaching in 1998 and I retired in 2000.
Alpine when I was young:
It was completely different then. The only homes on main street were the Burk home, the two Hamblin homes, and the Skousen home. There was a Mercantile Store and Post Office combined, where the grocery store is now. At the top of the hill across from the church, there was a gas station and grocery store. My grandmother’s house was below the hill where the real estate office is now. My grandmother lived there alone until she was 8
8 years old and then she broke her hip and had to move in with us out on the ranch. Later we remodeled her old home, and when I started high school we moved into town.
Logging:
When I was growing up, logging was a big industry in this area. The Forest Service would put out bids on areas in the forest and logging companies would submit their offers. There was one saw mill across the valley where the new school is now. The school received a lot of money from the Forest Service in lieu of taxes from the sale of timber by the logging companies. It is just the opposite now. The Forest Service is paying people to thin the trees.
Acreage:
Kenneth and I own 40 acres at the west end of the valley. It is part of the original homestead which consisted of 120 acres. At the time of my dad’s death he owned the original 120 acres, the land where Chapache now stands, 120 acres around Luna Lake, and 360 acres by the double cattle guard in Nutrioso.